Bird Rides Inc., the scooter-sharing unicorn reportedly valued at $2 billion, wants to build a global partner ecosystem to accelerate its expansion roadmap.

The startup today launched Bird Platform, a partner program that will enable other companies to build their own scooter networks using its technology. It’s initially becoming available in Canada, Latin America and New Zealand. Bird will provide partners with all the components necessary to build an app-based urban mobility business in return for a 20 percent cut of fares.

The startup will first and foremost give companies access to its internally designed scooters. According to Bird, the program enables partners to buy the vehicles at cost with the option of adding on their own custom branding. 

Bird is also offering software to help outside operators manage their fleets. The startup will provide a cloud-based dashboard with analytics features for monitoring scooter usage and tools to ease the task of meeting local regulations. Furthermore, Bird promises to give partners a hand with sorting out the business aspect of launching a transportation network.

Partner-operated scooters will be available to users via the startup’s own app. By teaming up with other companies to bring new fleets online, Bird could potentially speed up its international expansion, particularly in countries where it doesn’t yet have an established presence. This might give the startup an edge over rivals such as Uber Technologies Inc. that are also working to extend their scooter fleets to more markets.

Bird Platform may also ease the startup’s path to profitability. The program offloads most of the costs involving buying and operating scooters to partners, which could improve Bird’s margins in the long run if it manages to establish a sufficiently large ecosystem.

Bird and the other major scooter-sharing providers are currently all losing money on their fleets because of steep maintenance costs. Electric scooters have fairly short life spans, especially when they’re rented by several users each day, and that’s not even accounting for issues such as software malfunctions. Bird Chief Executive Travis VanderZanden told The Verge that his startup will need to increase the average lifespan of its scooters to six months to reach breakeven.

Photo: Bird